Sunday, March 4, 2012

Often I tease my fellow riders,
boasting that my position as blog author makes me final arbiter of
truth for our Sunday rides as reported here. But this one I have to
own. This one I have to admit to. It was too egregious. There were
too many witnesses. Physical evidence remains.

The worst led ride in Polar Bear
history found me at the front, in charge, at least until the mutiny
occurred.

Sunday's debacle was not my intention.
It all seemed so easy on Google Maps.

Our Polar Bear rides are, by necessity,
heavily dependent upon the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State
Parkway. When I consulted Google Maps for our route to Highlands,
N.J., it offered three alternatives. One was way too familiar: down
I-95, over the GW Bridge, down the Turnpike. The other was just as
well worn: Tappan Zee to GSP. Then there was a third option.

So I thought to myself, “Hey! This is
just 10 minutes longer. And it is the road less traveled – by us at
least. It might be fun to take I-278 west down through Queens and
Brooklyn, over the very cool Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and across
Staten Island and then down Route 9. We would never even touch the
Turnpike or Parkway! And how bad can the traffic be on a Sunday
morning?”

I successfully navigated my Garmin
software to map out the route, complete with way points. I then
transferred it to my sophisticated, on-board, computer, global
positioning, satellite receiver.

As it turned out, I should have used
the wax pencil on my mirrors.

Any confidence I have built for my GPS
over the past two years was shattered in a single Sunday. There is no
longer any trust between us.

At first we had a grand time. Garmin
and I were simpatico. I was really enjoying the urban twisties as the
Hutchinson River Parkway became even more serpentine south of the GW
Bridge. All too soon we were at the Whitestone Bridge. And there is
started.

They have those damn toll gates. And it
turned out that Pogy carries his EZ Pass mounted to the inside lid of
his saddlebag. So when it did not read, there was a substantial time
loss as he dismounted, opened the bag, handed the transponder to a
disapproving toll clerk, remounted . . . well you get the idea. Our
group came apart.

Exiting the bridge I saw a left-side
turnout of sorts. It being New York City there was no shoulder on the
right side. I pulled in there and waited for us to regroup.

We launched back onto the expressway, a
feat of itself in traffic.

Then I missed a turn.

Leading a group of bikes, six were
behind me, severely limits your options for navigation error
recovery. If I had been by myself, I would have managed it all okay.
And I would not have to report my stupidity in this public forum.
Heck, I might have even paid three tolls for the Whitestone Bridge. I
might have, if it was just me.

Instead, I blindly followed my GPS into
bedlam. At lunch only then did a fellow rider reveal the causal
element. “Sometimes when you miss a way point, your GPS will route
you backwards to that point, instead of pointing you forward to the
next one,” Token2 explained. “A better way is to plug in each
point-to-point as a separate trip.”

Ignorant of that Garmin foible, and
mildly panicked about missing the expressway after the bridge, and
with a gaggle of conflicting opinions about the right way out of the
mess, I found myself on the on-ramp headed back north to the #$%^&
Whitestone Bridge, when I wanted to be going south away from the
bridge.

A solution presented itself. One or two
of my fellow riders even concurred. But not all of us executed the
solution flawlessly.

Fortunately, no one was injured. Mac's
rack should be able to be bent back to its original position. (Flag
rack. On his bike. Geeze! What were you thinking?) Captain's front
end may need replacing. But it's a Honda and therefore plastic and
presumably only a money matter, perhaps even covered by insurance.

All that on my mind and a second wrong
turn soon after recovering from the bridge roundabout and Token2 rode
up with an offer to lead me to an easily discernible path, at which
point he offered that I could attempt to regain any shred of dignity
I might by retaking the lead. I was defeated. I agreed.

As we headed Token's way, me in the
second position, I saw straight ahead of me the freeway ramp for
which I'd so frustratingly searched. It was right there. It was
straight ahead. It was the way point my GPS had been seeking. I
should charge ahead and take it! The light turned green. I meekly
followed Token instead, turning left to go a different way than my
brilliant, desktop computer plan.

Eventually I recovered and saw the
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge ahead. Holy crap! Thirteen dollars? The toll
is $13? Oooooh, ouch! I should have Googled that the night before. It
might have changed the whole route right there, and saved me the
embarrassment of this ride.

I have always wanted to ride this great
bridge on my motorcycle. When it opened in 1964 it had the
distinction of having the longest suspended span in the world.
Greater than even the Golden Gate Bridge. The mighty towers at either
end holding up the span actually are built to lean away from each
other to allow for the earth's curvature. Each is held together by 3
million rivets and a million bolts. John Travolta danced around the
mighty suspension cables in “Saturday Night Fever.” I had never
been on the bridge on my motorcycle.

Myself, I gladly paid the toll. It was
a thrill, even if it cost something like a dollar a second. But I
would not have foisted that fee on my fellow riders without their
prior consent. Lunch cost just $20 apiece, for heaven's sake, and was
really good, and lasted an hour.

It will be a month before I get my EZ
Pass statement. However, according to MTA's web site, the motorcycle
EZ Pass is heavily discounted and cost us only $4.18. The $13 sign
was for cars paying cash. By comparison, New York should have whacked
us $2.09 for the Whitestone Bridge and actually charged us more,
$4.75, for the far less dramatic Tappan Zee Bridge.

But you know how it is. These guys will
forever remember the $13.

Over the Verrazano and rocketing across
stately Staten Island, a perverse thought crept into my head.

Things were settled down now. We were
back in our groove. And I wondered, if only for a moment, I wondered,
I was still in the lead mind you, I wondered if these guys would all
follow me if I just now dove off on some random exit. My voice of
reason told me I had instigated enough confusion for the day and any
shenanigans would be poorly received.

At lunch I did offer my return route up
for a vote. The resounding majority was for the good old, boring
Garden State Parkway. And off we trudged yet again.

Hooters is our shortest ride in the
Polar Bear schedule. Most of us only get one mileage point. However
this year we managed to stretch it into one of the longest rides –
in terms of time.

There was a Harley-Davidson ad a few
years back that said, “No great story ever started with, 'I was
sitting on the couch when . . .'.”

Captain has had his share of adventure
on a motorcycle. Fortunately he overcomes most every adversity with a
well stocked kit. He is a consummate Boy Scout, though I don't know
if he ever was one. Captain is always prepared.

He reminds me of the pilot Orr in
Joseph Heller's “Catch-22.” Orr keeps crashing. Each time his
plane is shot down he makes a water landing and comes popping out of
the plane fully prepared for any emergency with his little yellow
life vest and paddling around in his tiny, inflatable life raft. (For
all I know, Captain carries a tiny, inflatable life raft on his
bike.)

So when his tire went down on our ride
last Sunday, Captain snapped into action, pumping it up with the
compact, portable, 12 volt, air pump he always carries in his bike's
saddlebags.

Captain was sweeping and we were
alerted to his plight only when his buddy rider Token2 eventually
noticed Captain was no longer in his rear view mirrors and came
riding up to alert the leader. (I'm not sure who was riding ahead of
Token2, but that is the rider who should have alerted us when Token2
dropped back with Captain to see if assistance was required.)

Mac, leading his first Polar Bear ride,
was oblivious. But in his defense, we do tend to get strung apart a
bit when we merge from one highway to another. And there were a lot
of bikes, well okay just eight, to keep track of.

While Token2 was up front shouting at
Mac through a full face helmet, a car pulled up and matched speed
with me. I was in the third position, which made me the second
left-side rider after Mac. We were in the right-hand travel lane.
This guy in the car was gesturing in great earnest. I had not a clue
as to what he was trying to say. I soon found out.

Token2 now in the lead, pulled us off
at the northernmost rest area at the top of the Garden State Parkway
(GSP). He knew only that he had lost sight of Captain as we merged.

Before anyone launched a heroic rescue
effort, I got Captain on his cell phone and he told me he had lost
pressure in his rear tire on the on-ramp to the GSP from I-287. He
was hoping to pump enough air into the tire to reach us. It takes
some time. Those little pumps are slow. Waiting seems even slower.

Token2, perhaps feeling guilty about
abandoning Captain, hesitated a bit then decided to ride back to see
if he could help. This would require him to ride through quite a few
miles of northern New Jersey and southern New York. Captain arrived
at the rest stop long before Token2 reemerged from his fruitless
reconnoiter.

When he arrived at the rest stop where
we were waiting, I crawled on my hands and knees behind Captain's
bike as he slowly pulled forward, trying to see if there was a nail
or screw or other obvious problem with the tire. We went quite a ways
through the parking lot, me on all fours like a dog sniffing
Captain's rear tire. I could not find anything. Only when we arrived
at Hooters did Captain reveal he had a center stand, you know, the
kind that allows the back tire to spin freely while the bike remains
conveniently stationary?

Captain next pulled out his tube of
Slime flat repair and used the gas station's air to pump his tire
back to life again.

It seemed longer. And nobody looked at
their watch when we pulled over. But the whole delay was maybe 30 or
40 minutes. We headed to Hooters.

Unfortunately, the Slime did not
perform as advertised. So in the parking lot of our destination,
Jim-O, yet another apparent Boy Scout, brought out a tire plugging
kit.

These are good guys with which to ride!
It seems everybody but me had a can of slime and air pump. Jim-O had
a complete tire plugging kit, one especially made for motorcycles
nonetheless.

I remember when I bought my bike. I
asked my friend and Dealership General Manager Domenic Maturo what
tools I should carry on my Harley-Davidson. Dom looked at me, smiled,
and said, “You?” and then held up his cell phone, “This is all
you need.”

In fact I do have some tools tucked
away in my saddlebags. But I don't much know how to use them. And
there are a few emergency supplies too, mostly centered around my
survival as I wait for help to come after I've called on my cell
phone.

And in my own defense, I have tube
tires. So if one goes flat, well, there's no way I'm carrying tire
irons and a patch kit or spare tube. Besides, I would not have the
first, faintest idea of how to get the wheels on and off this machine
with its springer front end and the drive belt on the rear.

Captain tediously pumped his tire back
to life in the Hooters parking lot. We patiently waited.

Then we were headed home.

Mac, also a Navy man, gave no quarter.
Me, I maybe would have tried to limp the bike home. Mac blasted up
the GSP at speed and Captain kept up . . . for a little while.

Fonz said you could see smoke out of
both sides of Captain's rear tire when it blew.

Captain never heard the explosion. He
just felt the wobble. But it must have been a big boom. Because when
Captain went to guide his crippled bike from the far left passing
lane to the far right shoulder, across four travel lanes, he found
them all empty. All the cars had come to a dead stop behind him. Fonz
and Jim-O had blocked the lanes too.

Captain never lost his balance. He
expertly guided the bike to the shoulder. This time Fonz, Jim-O and
Token2 stayed with him. (In fact I wonder if Token2 followed the tow
truck all the way back to Milford.)

I did not see it happen. Three other
bikes and I were trying to keep up with Mac at the head of the pack.
So I cannot say for sure how Captain reacted to calamity.

I bet he was nonplussed.

My point of reference comes from when
Captain blew up his Harley-Davidson motor on a Polar Bear ride last
season. I stayed with him until the tow truck arrived and then
followed them home. Captain took it all in stride and with good
humor.

Then there is the story of Captain on a
summer ride across the country a few years back, where his engine
blew up and he had the bike shipped home, completing his trip by bus
and then flying back from the West Coast after completing his
vacation. He describes it all as a fun adventure.

Hooters was good to the eyes and
stomachs, not so much the service. I was left waiting for my food,
last one at our table. We tried to recall who it was that befell the
fickle finger of fate two years ago. We voted that it was Russ whose
order was forgotten. Well they don't hire the wait staff based upon
an I.Q. test, and who can protest?

My chicken sandwich arrived just as my
compatriots were finishing their meals. As my fellow Bears can tell
you, I am a slow eater. So it turned out I contributed, in my own
small way, to making our shortest mileage Polar Bear run of the
season into the longest in time.